Guide
SHEIN or Temu copied your product: where the report goes and what it gets you
Both platforms take a copyright report from the rights owner, and neither one requires a registration. SHEIN's complaint form is public at shein.com/ip-complaint. Temu's IP Protection Portal needs a sign-in, or you can email its designated agent instead. What a report gets you is a removed listing. Not money, and not a banned seller.
Written September 14, 2026
The advice in the seller threads says the opposite. The objection that keeps coming back in a September 2026 thread about SHEIN copying a maker's designs is that you have to hand over the original design file, and one seller posted in November 2024 that you need the copyright registered first. Both forms say otherwise in their own words, and the words are quoted below.
The short version
- Your photographs are copyright from the moment you take them. SHEIN's registration field reads "(if applicable)" and Temu's report guide accepts a public link to your original work.
- SHEIN: one public form, no account, three steps, one primary right per report, a 15 MB upload cap and an email code at the end.
- Temu: sign in to the IP Protection Portal, up to 200 listing links in one submission. "Report This Item" on the listing is the shopper button and does not reach the rights-owner queue.
- Both publish a designated agent you can email if the portal will not take you.
- The shape and cut of a garment or product is outside copyright, so no report reaches it.
- A removal takes down the listings you named. The same seller can post again tomorrow.
How to report a copy
Build the packet before you open either form. Every field on both of them is asking for one of four things, and collecting them first is the difference between a report that gets read and a report that comes back asking for more.
- Every listing link on the platform. Temu's United States policy asks for a "List of infringing products (URLs for the product detail page of the specified product)." A screenshot is not a link and a shop link is not a listing link. Twelve copies means twelve addresses.
- Your own dated public listing or post. This is how an unregistered work gets identified. Your product page, your marketplace listing, your dated post: any page that shows the work was yours and was live first.
- The source file, with its date. The camera file or the layered artwork, whichever one carries the date. SHEIN asks for a "Link or files showing creation of the original work", and it will take the link instead of the file. Keep any upload under 15 MB across pdf, doc, xls and jpg.
- A side by side. Your image and theirs in one frame, with the listing address visible. A reviewer working through a queue should see the match without hunting for it.
Then decide what they took. SHEIN's form makes you pick one right, and Temu's notice makes you say where the infringement sits. Photos, artwork and branding each have a route. A copied shape does not.
The photograph row is marked because it is the one that needs nothing registered and the one a copied listing takes first. SHEIN's own form strings and Temu's United States intellectual property policy, read September 14, 2026.
- They used your photo. That is copyright in the photograph, and it is the easiest claim to make because it needs nothing registered. SHEIN's form offers it as its own option, "My photograph is used in the product page". On Temu the notice states where the infringement sits, and the box for this is the image on the product detail page.
- They used your artwork or your print. That is copyright in the artwork. SHEIN splits it two ways on the same form, into "My design or artwork is used on the product" and "My print or fabric pattern is used on the product", and it also runs a separate design-rights branch with an option that reads "My unregistered design is used by the product."
- They used your name or your logo. That is trademark, and it is the branch where a registration does the most work. Temu keeps trademarks in a portal of their own, the Brand Registry, which its own page calls "a channel to report alleged trademark infringements." Which right covers which asset sorts the whole catalog if you are not sure which of the three you are holding.
- They copied the shape and the cut. That is outside copyright, and no report on either platform reaches it. United States law calls the product a useful article, and the Supreme Court said in 2017 that the owners of a cheerleading uniform design "have no right to prohibit any person from manufacturing a cheerleading uniform of identical shape, cut, and dimensions to the ones on which the decorations in this case appear." The decoration on the garment can be protected. The garment cannot. A design patent is the right built for appearance, and it comes with a clock: under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(1) your own public sales are excused for one year and no longer, so a maker who has been selling the design for over a year has lost the United States design-patent option. The difference between the two patent types covers what the filing costs and how long it takes.
If the photographs are the claim, they are also worth registering while this is going on, because registration is what decides whether the money side of a lawsuit exists later. Registering a catalog of product photographs covers the group applications that make it affordable.
One fork to settle before you open either form: are you the owner, or are you filing for someone else? SHEIN's form states that "You must be legally authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the trademark or copyright." Temu's United States policy takes a notice from the rights owner or from "an agent with permission from the rights owner to submit notices on his or her behalf", and Temu's own report guide adds that if you pick agent "you must also provide an authorization letter from the rights owner along with your identity information." Filing for your own brand means picking owner and skipping the letter. Filing for a client, or through a service, means the letter is part of the packet before anything else happens. Temu also says a rights owner can keep filing directly even while an agency handles their monitoring.
The SHEIN route
SHEIN's complaint form sits at shein.com/ip-complaint and it is public. No account, no sign-in. Its own opening line is that "If you believe that material or products on our site or mobile app violates your copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights, please submit your complaint through this form." It is three steps, labeled basic info, detailed info and verification, and SHEIN publishes the address itself in the terms it serves to European shoppers.
Step 1 is the decision. The form asks for "The Primary intellectual property right allegedly infringed" and gives four choices: trademark, copyright, utility patent and design rights. One report carries one primary right, so a maker whose photo and whose print were both taken files on the stronger one or files twice. Utility patent is a dead end for almost everyone here, because that branch asks for a court order or judgment supporting the claim.
The copyright branch is where the registration myth dies. The field is labeled "Copyright Registration Number (if applicable)", and what the form wants next to it is a "Link or files showing creation of the original work". The instruction spells out that a link will do: "Please provide a link or upload a file showing your creation of the original work (for example, original design files)." The design-rights branch says the same thing in its own words, "For unregistered designs, please provide a link or upload a file showing the creation of your original design (for example, design files)."
Step 2 narrows the claim. For copyright the form asks "Which statement describes the alleged copyright infringement?" and the answers include "My photograph is used in the product page", "My design or artwork is used on the product" and "My print or fabric pattern is used on the product". For design rights it asks which statement describes the alleged design infringement and splits registered from unregistered directly: "My unregistered design is used by the product." Those are the form's own strings, read from its string bundle on September 14, 2026.
Step 3 is the part people worry about and should not. What you sign is a belief, not a finding: "By signing my name (electronic signature), I represent that I have a good faith belief that the use of the reported intellectual property, in the manner described above, is not authorized by the intellectual property rights owner, its agent, or the law." SHEIN then sends a verification code to your email address to confirm the submission. Uploads are capped, with SHEIN's note reading "Support(*.pdf), (*.doc), (*.xls), (*.jpg), the total size limit is 15MB", so compress the side by side and link to the rest.
There is a second door. SHEIN's United States terms, effective September 3, 2026, say you may instead "send a notice of claimed infringement to us_legal@sheingroup.com with the subject 'Takedown Request.'" That mailbox belongs to the agent SHEIN has on file with the United States Copyright Office: SHEIN US Services, LLC, Copyright Agent, Legal Department, 777 S. Alameda St. Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA 90021-1672, on record since October 6, 2025. SHEIN's own terms print a different floor for the same street address, so use the government record if you are serving a notice by post. Searches of that directory for Roadget and for Zoetop, the two names older guides give for SHEIN's copyright agent, return nothing at all.
Two things SHEIN does not publish. There is no stated turnaround anywhere on the form or in the terms, so any number of days you have read about SHEIN did not come from SHEIN. And SHEIN publishes no separate route for Marketplace sellers: the same form, the same fields, the same address, with the only seller-specific line in the terms being that SHEIN reserves the right to terminate access for any user or third-party seller who repeatedly infringes. Reserving a right is not a commitment to use it.
The one clock SHEIN does publish runs against you. If the seller answers with a counter notice, the terms say "The removed material may be replaced or access to it may be restored 10 to 14 business days after the counter notice is processed unless the party claiming infringement files a lawsuit against you." That is the window in which a removal either becomes permanent or becomes a decision about whether to sue.
The Temu route
Temu's door is the IP Protection Portal, and it wants a sign-in before you can file. Temu runs two portals and says what each is for: "The IP Protection Portal (IPP) provides a comprehensive solution for rights holders to submit takedown notices across all types of intellectual property", while "The Brand Registry (BR Portal) is a specialized tool focused solely on trademarks for rights holders." A stolen photo is a copyright claim, so it belongs in the first one. Brand Registry would route it into a trademark path it does not fit.
Do not use the button on the listing. Temu's support page separates the two audiences in one sentence: "if you are the rights holder, please submit your report through the IP Portal", and if you are not the rights holder, click the "Report this item" button on the product detail page. A maker who taps that button has filed a shopper complaint, and the filing that matters has not happened.
Step 1 is the sign-in, and it is the step that stops people. Temu's United States policy describes the filer as "logged into our online intellectual property infringement report portal ('IP Portal')", so the account comes before the notice. Temu publishes one way around it, an email to its designated agent, and that address is at the end of this section.
Step 2 is the work and the listings. Unregistered work goes through the same portal. Temu's own walkthrough, the Report Infringement Guide it wrote and which circulates as a PDF hosted by the Greeting Card Association rather than on a temu.com address, says that "For copyright ownership, if no registration number is available or if the copyright is unregistered, please provide a public link to your original work". That public-link sentence is the one worth keeping. Temu's portal notice does list a registration number among the ways to identify your right, and its DMCA section does not ask for one at all, so a registration number is one accepted way to identify what you own rather than a requirement.
The same step is where the portal earns its keep, which matters if you are looking at a wall of copies. The form's own instruction is that "Multiple links need to be separated by line or spaces, and a maximum of 200 URLs can be submitted." Sixty listings is one filing, not sixty. Temu's notice also asks for the "Nature of infringement (whether infringement occurs on the product, physical product packaging, image on the product detail page, or text on the product detail page)", so say which one before it asks twice.
Step 3 is the submission, and it hands you something to keep. Temu's guide says "Upon submission of the report, we will send you an autogenerated email containing an exclusive link to the complaint tracking system." That link is where the complaint lives once it is filed, and it is what you point at later: when the same shop posts the artwork again and you want the history in one place, when you escalate, or when a lawyer asks what you filed and on what date. Temu also warns that it "may request additional information before processing a report, such as verification or other documentation regarding the claimed right and ownership", so keep the packet where you can reach it.
If the sign-in blocks you, Temu publishes an email route. Its United States policy says that if you cannot use the portal you can submit the same information to its DMCA designated agent. Temu's published agent record carries the address: Attention Copyright Officer, Whaleco Inc., Suite 355, 31 St. James Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02116, ipprotection@temu.com. That matches the designation filed with the United States Copyright Office, in effect since March 3, 2025. One seller who had nothing registered posted in January 2025 that they used that address and that Temu replied to confirm the listings were removed.
On timing, Temu publishes one figure and it is Temu's own: "The average takedown resolution time is less than 1 business day." Read it as what the company says about its own averages, not as a commitment about your report. Temu also states that it will not tell you much about what happened next, because "We do not share details of actions which are not already public in nature."
The seller gets a reply of their own. Temu's United States policy says that where the content provider believes the removed material is not infringing, that content provider "may send us a counter-notice", which is the same unwind SHEIN's terms describe and the reason a removal is not final on the day it happens.
One thing to know before you follow any link to Temu's policy. Every Temu policy quoted on this page is the United States version, last updated March 2, 2025. The same address serves a different document to a reader outside the United States, written for European rules, with no DMCA section and no designated-agent fallback in it.
What not to rely on
Three pieces of advice travel further than they deserve, and all three come from people who were trying to help.
That you need a registration first
This is the most repeated wrong answer in the threads. One seller posted on September 14, 2026 that "Shein requires you to upload the original design file in order to file a copyright claim. Don't think anyone is ever going to do that." Another seller posted in November 2024 that "Shein have report button on each listing which successfully removes the violation, for me so far 100% was removed. Not a single claim declined", and the same comment goes on: "But you need to have copyright registered, which you apperantly do". The live form contradicts both halves. Its registration field reads "(if applicable)", and next to the evidence field the form asks you to "provide a link or upload a file". The link is an option, not a fallback, and nothing on either platform makes you hand over your working files.
Registration does matter, and it matters for a different thing. It is the prerequisite to filing a lawsuit in the United States, and it is what decides whether statutory damages are on the table at all.
The numbers from the greeting-card pilot
A widely shared set of Temu figures, a resolution rate of 100 percent and an average processing time of 0.8 business days, comes from a private pilot the Greeting Card Association ran with Temu, reported after a meeting on December 15, 2025. Twelve member businesses were in it. GCA reports those as early results for its own program, and later updates count over 57,000 designs removed for the members in it. None of that describes what one maker filing alone should expect, and treating it as a service level is the fastest way to be disappointed by a normal outcome.
Suing as the plan
The case people remember is Perry v. Shein Distribution Corporation, filed in the Central District of California on July 11, 2023 by three artists. The racketeering claim did not survive the pleadings: the court dismissed it with leave to amend on February 15, 2024. A notice of settlement was filed on September 8, 2025 and the case terminated the next day, on terms that were never made public. That is not a template, and it is not a result you can price.
The statute decides the economics before a lawyer does. Under 17 U.S.C. 504 a court sets statutory damages "in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000" for each work, and may raise the award "to a sum of not more than $150,000" for a work where the owner proves the infringement was willful. Those are the numbers people have in mind when they talk about suing a marketplace.
Then 17 U.S.C. 412 gates all of it. No award of statutory damages or attorney's fees can be made for an infringement that started after first publication and before the registration took effect, unless the registration was made within three months after first publication. For an unregistered catalog that usually means proving actual losses, which costs more to prove than most single copies are worth.
What a removal does not do
A removal takes down the listings you named. That is the whole of it, and the edges are worth knowing before you spend an evening on the packet.
A removal does not pay you for the units already sold. One seller published the email they sent Temu in January 2025, which asked to be compensated for the units sold on the platform, and wrote afterwards that the reply ignored that part of the request. The listings came down. Ask for the removal in the report, and treat compensation as a separate decision with a different route, because the report channel has no mechanism for one.
A removal does not stop the seller who keeps reposting. One seller posted in July 2025 that they had filed over 6,000 copyright notices through Temu's portal, that "Temu are very fast to remove the infringing listings", and that against shops they had claimed against more than 300 times each, "the sellers still continue to operate and they still continue to post more of my artwork." That is one person's account of their own filings rather than a measured rate, and the shape of it matches what both platforms publish about themselves: Temu's United States policy says it terminates repeat infringers "in appropriate circumstances", SHEIN reserves the right to do the same, and neither commits to a threshold.
A removal also does not undo what the copy did to your own shop while it was live. Your listing and the cheap version of it sit in the same search results, and buyers draw the obvious conclusion about which came first. One seller posted in September 2026 that "people then accuse you of being a re-seller... of terrible rip off versions of your own designs!" Another seller posted in January 2025 about a second worry, that a marketplace's own systems would spot their work on those other sites and "they think they mass produced so Etsy will actually close your store". That second one is a seller's stated fear rather than any published marketplace rule, but both are reasons to file in the first week rather than the second month.
A report does not come free of risk if you are careless. Under 17 U.S.C. 512, anyone who "knowingly materially misrepresents" that material is infringing is liable for the damages and legal fees the other side incurs. That bar is high and it is not casual liability, but it is a reason to claim only the listings you can show are yours. Temu's United States policy adds a house rule on top of the statute: "The continuous submission of inaccurate or fake notices could lead to the removal of your submission privileges." Losing the portal over a sloppy batch costs more than the copies did.
A report here is also not the Amazon model. Amazon's own seller pages state that "To enroll a brand in Brand Registry, your brand must have an active registered trademark or a pending trademark registration." SHEIN and Temu take an unregistered right with proof of creation instead, which means a maker locked out of Amazon's program on the day they find the copy still has two doors open. What to do when a report goes nowhere picks up the thread when the answer is silence.
If the copies are also on a hosted storefront or another marketplace, file everywhere in the same sitting rather than one at a time. The copyright routes for every major platform has the rest of the doors, and the notice generator writes the version you send to a host or a registrar, which is the one channel that needs prose rather than a form.
If you sell into the EU
In the EU the platform owes you an acknowledgement and a decision. A United States filer gets neither. Both platforms are designated very large online platforms under the Digital Services Act, Shein since April 26, 2024 and Temu since May 31, 2024, and Article 16 of that regulation obliges a hosting provider to "send a confirmation of receipt of the notice" without undue delay and to "notify that individual or entity of its decision in respect of the information to which the notice relates, providing information on the possibilities for redress". Silence is a compliance question there, not a normal outcome.
Two enforcement facts get mixed up constantly, so keep them straight. The European Commission's fine of 200 million euros, announced on May 28, 2026, is Temu's. The proceedings the Commission opened against Shein on February 17, 2026 are about addictive design, the transparency of recommender systems and the sale of illegal products, and they are not an investigation into design copying. Neither of them changes what your own notice gets you.
Where Knockoff fits
Knockoff is what we build, so read this knowing that. Connect a Shopify store with the domain alone and your catalog becomes the reference. Your product photos get watched on Temu and SHEIN listings alongside the other marketplaces and the open web, and a match counts only when your photograph turns up in the seller's own listing gallery. Each confirmed match arrives with the archived page, a timestamped screenshot, your original beside theirs and the listing-level links both forms demand. On the managed plan Knockoff files the copyright report through each platform's own intake as your authorized agent. See what a prepared case holds, or check your own catalog for stolen photos first.
The limits matter more on this page than on most. Knockoff files copyright claims about your photographs. It does not file design-rights claims and it does not file trademark claims, so the unregistered-design branch on SHEIN's form and anything about your name or logo stays yours to send. A copy of the shape of your product is outside copyright, so nothing here reaches it, and our detection of a copied product look is advisory and never becomes a filing on its own. Nobody in this category controls what a platform decides, and we guarantee nothing about the outcome of a report. Shopify stores only today, one store per company, United States trademark watch only. One plan, fully managed, $799 a month, priced in the open, monthly, with no contract.
Questions
I never registered a copyright or trademark. Can I still file? +
Yes, on both platforms, if the claim is about your photographs or your artwork. Your photographs are copyright from the moment you take them, and SHEIN's complaint form labels its registration field "Copyright Registration Number (if applicable)" and asks instead for a "Link or files showing creation of the original work". Temu's own report guide says that if the copyright is unregistered you should "provide a public link to your original work". A trademark claim is the one where a registration does the most work, and Temu keeps trademarks in a separate portal it calls "a specialized tool focused solely on trademarks for rights holders".
SHEIN is using my product photos. Is that a different claim than copying the design? +
A stolen photo is a different claim, and both forms treat it as a different branch. The photograph is your copyright as the photographer, and SHEIN's form offers "My photograph is used in the product page" as its own option, separate from "My design or artwork is used on the product". On Temu the notice asks where the infringement sits, and the answer for a stolen photo is the image on the product detail page. The photo claim is the easier one, because nothing about it has to be registered.
What proof do I need before I open the form? +
Four things. Every listing link on the platform, because Temu's policy asks for URLs for the product detail page and a shop link will not do. Your own dated public listing or post, which is what an unregistered work is identified by. The source file with its date, the camera file or the layered artwork. And a side by side of your image against theirs. SHEIN caps the whole upload at 15 MB across pdf, doc, xls and jpg files.
Where exactly do I report a copy on Temu, and how long does it take? +
Sign in to Temu's IP Protection Portal at temu.com/intellectual-property-complaint.html, or send the same information by email to Temu's designated agent at ipprotection@temu.com. The "Report This Item" button on the listing is the shopper route and does not reach the rights-owner queue. Temu publishes one figure on timing, its own: "The average takedown resolution time is less than 1 business day." That is Temu's claim about its own averages, not a commitment on your report.
What is Temu Brand Registry and do I need it to file? +
You do not. Temu runs two portals and says what each is for: "The IP Protection Portal (IPP) provides a comprehensive solution for rights holders to submit takedown notices across all types of intellectual property", while "The Brand Registry (BR Portal) is a specialized tool focused solely on trademarks for rights holders." A stolen photo or a copied print is a copyright claim, so it belongs in the IP Protection Portal. Brand Registry would route it into a trademark-only path.
Can I sue SHEIN or Temu, or is a takedown all I get? +
Suing is possible and rarely proportionate. Three artists sued Shein Distribution Corporation in the Central District of California in July 2023; the court dismissed the racketeering claim with leave to amend in February 2024, and the case settled in September 2025 on terms that were never made public. Money is also gated by timing: 17 U.S.C. 412 bars statutory damages and attorney's fees when the infringement started before you registered the work, unless you registered within three months of first publication.
They took it down and the same seller reposted it. What now? +
File again, and expect to keep filing. One seller posted in July 2025 that they had filed over 6,000 notices through Temu's portal, that the listings came down quickly, and that the same shops carried on posting their artwork. A removal is scoped to the listings you named. Both platforms reserve repeat-infringer action for their own discretion rather than promising it, so the record you build is what eventually carries weight.
Will I get paid for the units they already sold? +
Not through either report channel. One seller published the email they sent Temu in January 2025, which asked to be compensated for the units sold, and wrote that the reply ignored that part of the request. The listings came down. Payment for past sales is a civil claim, not a platform outcome, and 17 U.S.C. 412 decides whether the money side is worth anything before you start.
Can someone file for me? +
Yes on both. SHEIN's form states that "You must be legally authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the trademark or copyright." Temu's United States policy takes a notice from the rights owner or "an agent with permission from the rights owner to submit notices on his or her behalf", and its report guide adds that an agent must supply an authorization letter from the rights owner. Temu also says a rights owner can still file directly while an agency handles their monitoring.
If the wording of your notice is the part holding you up, the notice template with each line explained covers the six elements both forms are built around.
Cite this page
Knockoff. "SHEIN or Temu copied your product: where the report goes and what it gets you." Published September 14, 2026. https://knockoff.co/guides/shein-temu-stole-my-design
Sources and dates
Verified September 14, 2026. SHEIN's own pages: the intellectual property complaint form, read September 14, 2026, for the public-access line, the step-1 right types, the "(if applicable)" registration field, the step-2 statements, the unregistered-design instruction, the declaration, the email verification and the 15 MB upload limit; SHEIN's United States terms, effective September 3, 2026, sections 15.1 and 15.2, for the email route, the utility-patent condition, the repeat-infringer wording and the 10 to 14 business day restoration window; and SHEIN's European terms for the complaint address SHEIN prints itself.
Temu's own pages, read September 14, 2026: the IP Protection Portal page for the sign-in requirement, the two-portal description, the trademark-only Brand Registry line, the 200-URL limit, the withdrawal route and the average resolution time Temu reports for itself; the intellectual property policy, United States version, last updated March 2, 2025, for who may file, the logged-in portal wording, the notice contents, the nature-of-infringement list, the designated-agent fallback, the additional-information clause, the counter-notice route, the repeat-infringer line and the submission-privileges warning, with the caveat that the same address serves a different policy outside the United States; the support page on reporting intellectual property for the split between the portal and the "Report this item" button; Temu's published agent record; and the Temu Report Infringement Guide, written by Temu and hosted as a PDF by the Greeting Card Association since November 2024, for the public-link instruction, the authorization letter and the complaint tracking link. The pilot figures are from the Greeting Card Association's own page, reporting a meeting with Temu on December 15, 2025 and updated in August 2026, and they describe twelve member businesses rather than the platform.
Designated agents are from the United States Copyright Office directory, read September 14, 2026: SHEIN US Services, LLC, effective October 6, 2025, and Whaleco Inc., effective March 3, 2025, with searches for Roadget and Zoetop returning no service provider at all. Law: 17 U.S.C. 101 for the useful-article definition, 102 for protection on creation, 411 for registration before suit, 412 for the statutory-damages gate and its three-month exception, 504 for the $750 to $30,000 range and the $150,000 willfulness ceiling, and 512 for misrepresentation; Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands, decided March 22, 2017, for the shape and cut; and 35 U.S.C. 171 for design patents with 35 U.S.C. 102 for the one-year grace period on the inventor's own sales. The lawsuit dates are from the CourtListener docket. Amazon's enrollment rule is from Amazon's seller blog.
European facts are from the Commission's list of designated very large online platforms, last updated September 7, 2026, for both designations and the fine of May 28, 2026; the press release of February 17, 2026 for the scope of the Shein proceedings; and the Digital Services Act itself, Article 16, for the acknowledgement and decision duties. Seller accounts are from public r/EtsySellers threads, read September 14, 2026: a September 2026 thread, a November 2024 thread, a January 2025 thread and a June 2025 thread, each quoted with the date of the comment itself.
Knockoff sells brand protection software and is not a neutral party. Knockoff is not a law firm and this page is general information, not legal advice. Forum posts are individual accounts of individual cases and are not platform policy. Forms and policies change without notice, so read the source before you rely on a line here.
